Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at a meeting with students and professors of the “Eqerem Çabej” University of Gjirokastër: 

 

The rector has asked me for some time to be here, and I couldn’t, but when I was told the meeting was going to take place today, I was a bit concerned to tell the truth. But they convinced me that they wouldn’t be bothered, so nice to meet with you!

I would like to begin with the visit we paid shortly before to the service centre that will open today in Gjirokastër, a one-stop-shop that will deliver many services. Citizens won’t go from one office to another anymore. All they will have to do is submit an application to the counter, and the team providing the service required will carry out the necessary procedure to send the document to the citizen’s home, or to inform the citizen that the document is ready to be withdrawn in the respective office. During this visit I noticed also that the new Faculty of Economics can be located in optimal conditions on the premises of the other part of the building.

I think that both the rector and the university leadership who showed me the project for the new Faculty of the Economics, share the same opinion. To tell the truth, when I learned that the lack of a proper faculty of economics had become an issue for you, I couldn’t understand it because where else than in Gjirokaster can people learn how to save money in Albania?  Where else than in Gjirokaster can people learn that every debt comes with a problem? I think that very soon the faculty of Gjirokaster will be also the most specialized centre for macroeconomics, and the experts graduating from here will constantly prevent both the Ministry of Culture and other ministries from receiving more funds, so that problems with the debt ceiling will be avoided.

But until then we will accomplish our works for Gjirokaster. I think that the day when this will be also a university city, is not far for I am convinced that the houses of Gjirokaster will be revived not only by turning into hostels or restaurants, as it is increasingly happening, but first of all by turning into student houses.

I am also convinced that both the Faculty of Economics and the new department of Cultural Heritage, are an added value for this University because the lack of specialists in the field of cultural heritage is really noticeable. Cultural heritage was left adrift for many years, and it has never raised the interest of the young people to study it in order to serve the country in this area where we have still a lot to do.

I am also convinced that the new law on the Higher Education, which has already started to give the first results in terms of quality increase, will show us in the 5 coming years a totally new look of our universities which, thanks to the competitiveness provided for by this law, and to the merit which is guaranteed through competitiveness, will really become hubs of knowledge taken to the right direction, and then conveyed by the university to the market through the right people.

Our challenge is to have university connected to the market as much as possible, have the needs of the country connected to what is taught in universities, and of course, to meet the most specific needs of the country by encouraging students to enrol in courses of study that aren’t much popular, if I can use this word, but which are required by the country, such as for instance the exact science where we need to fill a big gap. A gap that was created over the years because of the lack of young specialists who can teach in our schools where there are much needed. Fortunately, I believe, we managed to reverse this situation before it turned into an abyss between our children and young people, and their peers in the Europe where we want to integrate.

The Vocational Education Reform, which has begun to deliver the first results by marking a significant increase in the number of students choosing vocational education, will continually ease the burden on universities, also in terms of their overcrowding. This may create new conditions for us to truly fund scientific research and to build chain experiences, following the example of the experience of your university that has cooperated with the department of cultural heritage of the University of Macerata, which has one of the excellence departments in this field.

On the other hand it will enable us to have our universities become partners of the local and central government, in order to ensure the implementation of projects of different character, by beginning to transfer the major funds that the government has allocated for many years to private partners, for projects that can be carried out by universities, thus becoming a profitable channels of communication between the government and universities.

I see no reason why the Faculty of Economics of Gjirokastra or other economic faculties in Albania cannot be the preferred assistants to the local government in terms of the taxation system, budget, audit, in terms of all that important work that is carried out by every municipality, where we have seen catastrophic deficiencies in this regard precisely because of the lack of proper human resources.

The involvement of pedagogues and students with projects with the municipalities, in their departments, in their economic and finance departments, will be a great added value in order to increase the financial efficiency of the municipalities, and it can certainly generate revenue for the university. I’m not talking about projects that the university does for charity. I’m talking about projects that are funded by the municipalities or by the central government, with much less than the money we spend to fund projects with studios or with internal and external expertise and organizations, whose projects at the end of the day do not result to have a quality that is unlikely to be achieved by the university. Moreover, the truth is that even those projects are made by pedagogues or people who have recently graduated from our universities.

Having universities take a new path, and creating in every university a sense of profit through knowledge, will pave the way for a financial empowerment and for a real application of the financial autonomy, in order not only to spend the little money made available by the state budget, but also to earn more money and administer it.

It is very important that through this process, students enter the framework of the project culture since when they attend university. It is not money that does the project. It is the project that generates money. It’s not money that generates ideas, it is ideas that make money. If this culture is specifically nurtured in the university classrooms, then students will understand that in the classrooms or wherever they will do these projects together with their pedagogues, the future is not just a civil service position.

The future is in the minds and courage of those who put the knowledge they receive at universities at the service of their ideas and ventures. It is a disaster we have inherited by a big quarter-of-century parasitism, where the government became the largest employer, that the largest percentage of the students graduating from university, only aim to get a civil service employment. Meanwhile, it is quite abnormal to continue with this unjustifiable ratio, which can be found not only in our country, but in our entire region, among the students who want to work as civil servants, and the students who accept to work in the private sector as well.

Based on the surveys made, more than 80% of students want to work in the civil service. This is really unjustifiable for a democratic country that aims to grow economically through entrepreneurship, and on the other hand, where the government cannot be the largest employer, but should be the main supporter for creating the conditions for a continued economic growth through the growth of employment.

I’m sure that by introducing the culture of the project not only in universities, but since secondary education, and later even in the primary education, we will lay the foundations for a new culture of entrepreneurship and work in Albania. The difference between the students who go abroad after graduation, and those who after graduation wait in the coffee shops for the government to bring them work, shows that this is not a problem of the people. For they are the same people. Those who go abroad don’t make a fuss about any job. They accept any job with the ambition to succeed one day in working based on their profession, and they don’t say “I’d better stay in a coffee shop all day long than have a job that isn’t of my profession.”

Meanwhile, those who after graduation, wait for jobs in the coffee shops, are victims of a whole system of thinking and acting. This applies to every Albanian student or every Albanian citizen. This explains the extraordinary success of the Albanians in immigration, and by success I don’t mean only those who become famous, but I mean every Albanian who has succeeded to live abroad thanks to their job. Immigrants cannot ask the Prime Minister on Facebook to find them a job, or meet the local MP who can tell them: show me the party card and I’ll get you a civil service employment. Neither do they have there any friends or relatives who hold government positions, nor can they get a government job which their parents have bought through bribery. All they have there is their mind, their heart, their arms, and the sea which they have to cross by foot.

The fact that the Albanians don’t drown despite these conditions, shows us that it is not a matter of the people, but it is a matter of the system, a system built upside down in terms of the employment that has been feeding for so many years parasitism, laziness and the illusion that only a government employment is worthy, but also the desire to have a government job because it’s the only way to live without stress, without accountability, without any timetable, and where instead of working, people can chat all day long. We need to demolish this system, and in my point of view, its demolition begins from university.

Thanks to the new law, today universities are ready to start acting as actors in the market, not only as hosts of good-intentioned students who want to gain knowledge, by putting together teachers and students under the positive pressure to earn money. I assure you that the government, and I personally, will be more than ready to cooperate with universities in order to make them a priority since the very first steps when the government will fund projects that it needs.

At the local level I will do my best to keep mayors close to universities, and to make sure that the connections between universities and the municipalities is an organic one, in order for the municipalities to be provided services of a very special nature. You know better than me that there are some projects and programs which the municipality staff cannot realize for a 1001 reasons, and we cannot wait for the municipalities to be finally freed from the party influence on the administration, and from the selections that go through party offices. We need to feed them new knowledge and alternative human resources, which are the resources of the university, so that they will have a successful performance.

We have still to this day a local government that doesn’t produce money. There is no local government that doesn’t produce money. By producing money, I mean tax collection, I mean the creation of profit enterprise, the creation of public-private partnerships with mutual interest. I mean the transformation of services from tiring state services to active services in cooperation with actors outside bureaucracy. And you know very well that all these require money. All these need to be supported by an economic vision, a financial vision, and the know-how to articulate it. Where else than in the universities can municipalities find this vision? And the municipality of Gjiokatser, as well as those of Tepelene, Saranda, Memaliaj, Kelcyre, Permet and the municipalities of the minority groups of Finiq or Dropull, are lucky to have this university here. It is very unfortunate that after more than a quarter of century, no connections has been created between these two actors who are destined to work with each other for mutual benefit.

Why have expensive tenders for projects, when we can enter cooperation contract with universities, as it means lower costs for the municipalities and more money for the universities?

We will invest for the faculty of economics, but it’s not enough. Walls and furniture are not enough to have a creative and successful university hub. It must generate money, and this is how university should think it. And here in Gjirokaster, you should lead this trend, for your relation with money is as admirable as it is scary. Jokes aside, I believe that we can succeed in building this bridge. And this is why I willingly accepted to be here today because I wanted to talk about this instead of delivering a random speech. I think that together with the University of Gjirokaster we should engage in building a model which, be assured will be more successful here than in Tirana, at least nowadays because it is much easier to establish connections here.

We will continue to be very determined to free the university from parasitism, laziness, the status quo, and the law of higher education is the right law to do this. Students should think it thoroughly since when they are in high school. They cannot continue to claim that an average grade of 6 will psychologically stress the new generation. Most of the teachers here have known the time when with an average grade of 6, not only it was impossible to think about university, but people were neither sure if they would be given a pickaxe on which to live. We were attacked and accused of stressing out the young people because we have established 6 as the average grade to be able to attend university. How can these young people be prepared to face the challenges of life, if they don’t confront with the stress of competition since at a young age, and then in the university? They cannot!

Life without stress, throughout the education process with undeserved grades, with exams taken by cheating, with the state exams which are a state copy, with wide-open-door universities, brings what is later the disgrace of every family and of every young person who, after graduating, goes to the club and waits for the party to come and tell him or her, I’ll take you to the republic within the state, in a state that has become similar to Bosnia for more than a quarter of century.

Bosnia is divided into republics, and it is a federation of different communities of Serbs, Croats, Muslims. The Albanian state is divided into party republics. These are of this republic, those are of that republic, and the citizens of Albania are not equal in relation to their right to serve in the administration, but also in relation to their right to receive service from the administration. We need to end this, if we want to take forward the project to make statehood, and in this regard I am faithful that universities can make an extraordinary contribution. Just as I am convinced that the law on education make a great contribution by shaking up the system, and by telling every family, every child and every young person that in order to enter university, competition is required, the average grade is required, the State Matura score is required, and that neither party nor friends and money can take you there.

It doesn’t mean that those who enter university are more successful than some others. If you attend vocational education, and become let’s say plumber, electrician, carpenter, or cook, this doesn’t mean that you are destined to work for somebody else all your life. You can start your own business.

If today’s hub of excellence in vocational education is Central Europe, and if in Central Europe, starting from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and in all that area unemployment rate is lower and economic sustainability is higher, this is related to vocational education and to the fact that the majority of small and medium-sized businesses in these countries are run by people who finish their vocational education, open their own companies that provide hydraulic services, IT services companies, or engineering services. This is the path.

And on this path, not only we won’t tolerate to lower competiveness, but on the contrary it will become increasingly tougher because this is the only way not to lie to and ruin the children of this country. You are witnesses to this massacre in the education system where there have been cases of students of economics who had to start form the basis not of mathematics, but of arithmetic, or students who had to start form the alphabet. This cannot continue! Grad students who apply for a job in the civil service, cannot even write their own resume. And all this is due to the lack of competition stress.

We have a project with the Ministry of Culture to create a new tourist attraction network for Gjirokastra, the network of the writers’ homes. We have the home of Ismail Kadare here, and want to create a network of houses which will be reconstructed and will be named after a writer, and will be transformed into guesthouses, but they will also have a waiting room for an Albanian or a foreigner writer. We want to make Gjirokastra a city of festivals of poetry, of narrative and novel, certainly by using the impact of Ismail Kadare’s name, and if we establish an award or a program that is related to his name, there will certainly be also enough attraction.

Here also we need to make a project in the economic and financial aspect, because with regard to the restoration and the whole process to have these houses ready, we don’t need the University. Of course, those among you who study cultural heritage can be part of the work group and follow the whole process of restoration and completion of these works, of course after concluding a contract.

Meanwhile, we need a financial and economic plan on the way this network will be administered. You can create here a work group, and make a first test with professors of economics, with the Ministry of Culture, with the municipality, so that we can see how we can succeed in this process, how we can involve in it entrepreneurs, and the owners of the houses, what we can do in order for ownership title not to be an obstacle, and have owners benefit from this anyway, how the private entrepreneur will cooperate with the Ministry of Culture in terms of the future administration of this investment. So there are many issues that will require a solution.

I believe that we can find here the right people for such a project, and with such projects the University of Gjirokastra can then be offered to the Municipalities throughout this area. Keep in mind that there are universities in Europe in towns that are smaller than Gjirokastra, which provide consulting services around the world, universities the consulting service agenda of which is busy for years. You need to book I don’t know how many years in advance, in order to get their consultancy service. Be confident that this can be done, and that together we have no other way but do it, and we will do it.

Thank you!